Scottish Limited Partnerships used to funnel billions from Azerbaijan
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British companies using Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) are at the centre of a scheme to funnel money out of Azerbaijan, The Guardian has discovered.
SLPs were established in the early twentieth century for farm holdings but have been used as shell companies to accommodate the transfer of $2.9 billion from Azerbaijan to the UK, where it has been used to buy luxury items and influence politicians in Europe.
The cash was moved through Hilus Services LP and Polux Management LP, both based in Glasgow, via a branch of Danske Bank in Estonia between 2012 and 2014.
The details were confirmed in papers seen by the Guardian during a cross-border collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
L Burke Files, an international financial investigator, said: “One of the real attractions for serious money, however it has been obtained, is finding a jurisdiction where the rule of law is predictable.”
He added: “When it comes to jurisdiction, would you prefer to use a company in Scotland, under Scottish law, or some place like Burkina Faso or Algeria where the judges go to the highest bidder?
“The structure and how it was crafted into law also provides for an element of privacy.”
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